Guru

Who is John Galt? This is the line that comes to my mind after watching the monologue of Abhishek Bachchan a.k.a Gurukant Desai at the climax of the movie. It had to be this way for Guru to be a hero but as Roshan Sheth a.k.a Thapar said he is both a genius and a thug truly identifies the character of the movie.

I had to watch this movie over the hype about it and its likeness to the Ambanis and their struggle and I would say it was a typical Mani Ratnam movie. It has to have an item number as well as a young girl singing about her dreams to hardcore actions and human emotions with family and the whole bouquet. I will say it was a well made movie but the protagonist being potrayed as right at the end with hints to the governments shortcomings were erroneous. The tax evasions, duping shareholders and other items were not shown in the climax but the licence raj of the government, the stranglehold of the market by individuals were depicted till the end.

The end was abrupt. It showed one needs to bend the laws to create money. True the laws were restrictive at that time, but I will not say Guru was a John Galt. He was just a clever manipulator who understood what he needed to do to earn money and flourish in a business which was not to be a fly by night thing but a sustainable 'bijness'.

Over and all it represented the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, his clash with Nusli Wadia or Bombay Dyeing's fight with Reliance. The petrochemical venture, the clash with Indian Express and Arun Shourie. Why else would Mani Ratnam do a private screening for Mukesh Ambani prior to releasing the movie? Inspite of the declaration of fictional characters in the begining of the movie.

Abhishek and Mithun were brilliant in the movie. The songs were ok and I would have preferred seeing Vidya Balan instead of Aishwarya in that role of Guru's wife. Madhavan was under-utilized but effective. Over and all strictly pista movie according to me.

Trivia I observed:

Aishwarya Rai has a relationship after every successful movie with her co-actor.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam - Salman Khan
Kyun! Ho Gaya Na - Vivek Oberoi
Guru - Abhishekh Bachchan

Lazy Man's Lyric

Let me just put up a disclaimer saying that what you read will not fit the billing that the title has. I couldn't come up with anything else than a cheap shot at this great Met number. Just lazy ramblings during lunchtime on a Friday afternoon. So, here it is :

2 weeks since I started my new job
WFH, a dream fulfilled at last
Those Siemens 10'oclock meetings
Seem like distant past

Those shivery winter mornings
To warm my car, I would wait
No matter how hard I tried
I would always show up late

12th Jan the day I left
Was nothing special so to say
Ballsy wrote my farewell email
And clearly saved my day

Past 2 weeks have been interesting
With lotsa new things to learn
What I've done so far is bollocks
To justify the salary that I earn

A couch potato, I have become
I F5 rediff, Freaks Inc and spam
"Old habits die hard", I'd say
The loser that I am

Every new day in this job signals
The opening of a new vista
Despite my best efforts
This rhyme will still be pista

- Aup

wtf ?

i am left speechless.

Congratulations Goli !!!

Maria: So very graceful

After the terrible disappointment of the much touted ManU Arsenal clash, I decided to sit back and take my mind off the game. And what better way to do that than a compelling foreign language movie. I’ve been hearing loads of positive reviews of Maria full of grace that I decided to rent it on Netflix and I surely wasn’t disappointed with the final outcome.

The story is set in troubled Colombia shown through the eyes of an ebullient 17 yr old Maria Alvarez. She initially works at a florist factory separating thorns from roses. She is badly ill-treated to the extent that she quits her job even when she is one of the primary bread winners for her familia. Life takes a turn for the worse when she discovers she is pregnant with the baby of her boyfriend with whom she shares a relationship bordering hatred. The upswing in that relationship is that the feelings are mutual. Frustrated with her life in the remote town, she decides to move to Bogota and work as a ‘Mule’ (drug runner).

Her first assignment is to transport ‘Cocaina’ to New York. If successful, she would earn a fat pay-check of 5000$ which constitute to a zillion Colombian Pesos. I was startled at the way they’ve shown open drug transport from Colombia to the US. Maria is made to swallow small ‘Latex’ pellets filled with Cocaine. The obvious danger is, that if one of the pellets breaks inside her body, she would OD and die. The other is that if she shits, she would lose a few pellets and with that would have to face the wrath of the Colombian drugs lords both in the US and back home. The compelling story takes one more incredible twist where she is detained by the US authorities. They are of course aware of Mules and suspect that she might be one of them. They order an X-Ray to be performed on her to cross-examine their doubts.

I won’t go further into the story line of the movie to spoil it for anyone who decides to watch the movie after reading this. It is a very realistic story of the dreams of people from Latin America and their perception of US as the land of milk and honey. Catalina Sandino Moreno’s debut performance is just outstanding. The rave reviews and a debut Best actress Oscar nomination are richly deserved. Her subtle expressions, blank face in times to crisis and the joyful exuberance of a 17 year old are a treat to watch. Watch this one and you surely won’t be disappointed.

Rating 7.8/10

A valiant fight..I would just say I don't care

As an always optimistic, die-hard Indian cricket fan I am hurt and disappointed by the sudden turn of events on the fourth day in Cape Town, which led to this heart breaking series loss vs SA. A lack of killer instict is not a new thing but what is more disheartening is that the practice of giving it all away when the moment is ours is back again.

It is a no-brainer that when the series has to be decided by one good batting performance it is the senior members in the side that need to put their hands up. In India's case, the senior-most, batting legends.. so to say, froze like chickens and were demonstrated what it means to be positive by people who have less than 50 tests to show amongst themselves.

There will be post-mortems galore and people will still go on and say that it was a valiant fight by India especially after an utterly forgettable and dismal one-day series. There will be things said that both teams were evenly matched and no one even thought that India would stick up to South Africa and they gave them a very tough fight.

For what its worth(it wont even be worth scraps probably) I seriously think that if we perform to our abilities ( that has never happened and probably never will) we are a better team than South Africa any given day of the year. I think that we lost the series 1-2 rather than SA winning it 2-1.We got to be ashamed of abject surrender in Durban and Cape Town and some heads need to roll and rightly so.

Rahul Dravid said that the guys showed a lot of character even though the result didn't go their way. I respectfully disagree !

Quote...Unquote

I was reading Quote..Unquote on cricinfo and thought that something of that sort can easily be compiled for the numerous hilarious, some not so hilarous quotes by fellow Freaks (+ non Freaks) over a period of time. Call it either lack of motivation to write about my Sedona mountain jeep ride experience or the inclination to come up with something of my own or maybe just compulsive writing to kick-start Freaks Inc's 2007. People have this uncanny ability to surpass Kubrick or sometimes better Kanti when it comes to deep, thoughtful and insightful comments which are utterly meaningless. More often than not it just perplexes the listener and he doesnt know what hit him. Here are a few which I found worth mentioning.
PISTA

"Because...its not easy"

Aup's friend R when being asked why is it so difficult for her to sit at one place and have breakfast

"Basically what they serve is essentially Afghani food"

Aup when asked what do you get at the Afghani restaurant Helmand

KULFI

"Actually..the work which I am going to do at XYZ (my new company) involves a lot of
customer interaction"

Aup when asked how he plans to go about doing the knowledge transfer to his team mates before he leaves his present company

"Arre awesome movie hai.. usme Rajdoot(motorcycle) hai"

Aup's roommate Chintan's first reaction while he came home and Balls was watching Chashme Badhdoor

"Meri jawani badi mast mast hai"

Paave singing to Sabri brothers' legendary tune "Teri Jawani Badi mast mast hai".

BETTER KULFI

"Yaahr..mein subah uthkar ek glass paani pee liya karta hoon "

PuPu when asked if he cares to come out for his daily ritual.

"Haan, nahi..matlab pata nahi yaar"

Marw when asked about his position on road from Baltimore to Philly.

"Apna to baat ho gaya tha naa ?"

Vcd when asked about the target while playing cricket at Aup's Mount Ridge house.

"Arre..aaj mujhe swing, pace, bounce and drift mila. Jab thak gaya to leg-spin daala..usme bhi googly,rippers, turners sab daal saka"

Aup's friend A ruminates over a satisfying day of "rubber-ball" cricket.

"I've left De Rossi to boil in his own soup. He's a fantastic guy but he must change his computer chip"

Marcello Lippi on Daniel De Rossi after the infamous elbowing incident.

THE HOLY GRAIL

"Vivek main tumhare liye apni jaan bhi de sakta hoon...magar mein bhagwaan mein vishwaas nahi rakhta"

Akshay Kumar to Sonu Nigam in Jaani Dushman.. take a bow!

For that matter every dialogue from Gunda is Kantiesque (in the true sense) but we have already had a discussion on that. I hope this is just a start and there are many many more to come.